D&D in Africa

After an absolutely awesome trip in Africa our experience is now overshadowed by some terrible actions of the company we bought our car from called Cape Overland Workshop cc. trading under the name of Twende Overland Services cc.
Having returned the car and returned home to Switzerland we waited for their quote for the repurchase price. The quote never came but instead reports from other customers that the company had disappeared from their premises in Cape Town and neither Cliff Hunter or Claudia de Vries as owners were to be found. We started numerous futile attempts to contact them and find out what is happening and where the money is that they owe us. A week later we got a very short e-mail stating that Cape Overland Workshop cc. aka Twende Overland Services is bankrupt and mockingly offering ‘apologies for any inconveniences caused’. Damn, you cause us 116’000 Rands of inconvenience – and no, I don’t accept that apology!!!

We have now engaged lawyers in South Africa to get our car back, which is in their possession but which is lawfully still our property. It’s to be seen how successful that is going to be. I’m very skeptical…
(By the way: If anyone tries to sell you a Blue 2001 Toyota Hilux DC KZ-TE 3.0l Turbodiesel with ca. 233’410 km on the clock and a CA 663 047 registration, DON’T BUY, that’s o u r car!)

Because of my experience I would like to discourage anyone from doing any business with Cliff Hunter, Claudia de Vries or any of their numerous companies. We find it very odd that two days after we handed over the car, the company suddenly disappears and is later bankrupt. Smells very fishy to me and if you don’t like getting ripped off, avoid the following entities, which are connected to these persons:

• Twende Overland Tours and Travel CC (registration no. 2006/101758/23)
• Twende Africa Travel Services CC (registration no. 2005/034604/23)
• Cape Overland Workshop cc. (in liquidation!!) AKA Twende Overland Services cc.(www.twende.co.za or here is their Facebook Group)
• The website Overlanding Africa, offering travel services, is led by Claudia de Vries: http://www.overlandingafrica.com/ as this profile shows.

The services of Twende Overland Services were solicited to us by Drive South Africa (www.drivesouthafrica.co.za) which I would like to discourage people from doing business with as well. Obviously they are very careless in choosing their business partners. Frankly they did not give a hoot about their recommended partner ripping us off. So if you don’t want to end up with a disaster like ours, steer clear of the folks at Drive South Africa.

Link to this post and thus enhance my search ranking if you want to help other travellers finding this advice! Let’s join forces to make it harder for thugs like these to rip-off well meaning travellers!